I’m surprised that no one has reviewed any skinless on this site yet. I wasn’t super impressed with the last full-length Skinless CD as much of the humour and gore were absent but it crushed musically. The band is passing through town this summer on the Deicide tour so I figured I’d check out the DVD.

Skinflick is a mix of tour footage (from around the world!) inter-spliced with gig footage (one or two cameras at the most) , studio time, interviews, a home video and tons of back-stage antics. The requisite drunken debauchery is fully intact, people getting lost, drunk, stoned whatever goes on tours. It is a mix of bootleg and home video footage and it’s running time is a bit short.

It was really very fun to watch this and I was pleased because watching someone else get drunk and say or do stupid things most of the time is really hit or miss. If you aren’t there, it probably wasn’t as hilarious as the band thinks it was as they make their own memories pillaging across Europe. However, for whatever reason the charm, the goofiness translate really well and it looks like a really good time…I enjoyed watching it.

Scattered through out the DVD was footage of a few semi-drunken members with a posse of semi-drunken Japanese fans all grunting (for lack of any better term) the noises and sounds of famous metal songs meanwhile having a six or eight man mosh-pit and air guitar-ing, air head-banging etc… See what I mean? In writing it sounds dumb but it was really funny to watch, especially the acapella rendition of Reign In Blood. You have to see it to believe it.

The video, the title track of their 2003 CD, ‘From Sacrifice to Survival’ was low budget as well. It is hard to describe as almost nothing happens except a bunch of people (friends of the band presumably) run into a circle pit of old cars and jump and round and pretend to beat the hell out of each other while the band plays on. Do it yourself all the way!

I watched Skinflick back to back with the bonus footage from Dream Theater’s Live In Budokan DVD. It was night and day. In the Dream Theater DVD the band sits around calmly talking about how this is their fifth time in Japan and how nice the fans are, they ride on bullet trains, sign autographs etc.. In the Skinless DVD the band (decked out in Death Metal shirts) hit the streets, go to local museums, make fun of everything they see, get drunk with fans and try to teach the local girls to say ‘cocksucker’. Like I said, night and day.

This is low budget all the way! Not much packaging, not really any bonus features and the video quality is poor at best. Skinflick is about as raw and unpolished as it gets. This is the way an underground Death Metal DVD should be.